#the olive branch | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hyperfixatingonsmth · 8 months ago

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omg, this part was so good! them finally having somewhat of a conversation about things took so much stress away. i love them and need them to get back at g*rrett immedietely.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS ━━ LN4.

sometimes the right words are hard to come across, and sometimes everything you need to say can be captured in an image.

( lando norris x photographer!reader )

━━ part ten.

It all happens in a blur.

One moment Lando is hugging you. The firm press of his chest against yours, the grip of his calloused hand on your neck keeping your head tucked into him, and the pounding beat of his heart where your hands are trapped between the two of you. It’s such a familiar feeling— the warmth, safety, and comfort of it all. It’s like coming home.

And then the next moment he's jumping away from you like the touch of your skin against his has left him burned. Like he doesn’t trust himself not to cross the distance again if he stands a step too close—

“Erm,” he rubs at the back of his neck, and avoids your eyes as though the very thought of meeting them is appalling. There's an awkwardness about him that’s never existed before, even back when you were still far from ever calling one another friends. “Sorry. I should've asked first.”

“It's fine,” you answer. It is fine. It's been fine for years now.

You hadn’t been a particularly touchy person when you were younger— a byproduct of growing up in a family that never really cared much about or prioritized physical affection. You used to see other girls at school cling to one another in the halls, or link arms on the way home, or play with each other’s hair at lunch and it hadn’t bothered you that you didn’t have that same level of closeness with any of them, but it had confused you that friends could be so touchy-feely when your own parents seemed reluctant to spare even a pat on the shoulder.

Lando changed that.

Lando’s changed a lot of things, you’re realizing.

He grew up with three siblings and they bicker constantly, but they also have the easy closeness that you’ve always found so vastly different from your own friendships. They could be calling one another every name under the sun and then a few that you’re pretty sure they made up, and at the same time they’ll be clinging to one another like they can’t bear the thought of standing more than a meter away.

The first time Lando slung his arm over your shoulder, you’d nearly had a heart attack.

And then he just kept doing it.

By the time you realized that his hugging and draping and clinging had become a new norm for you, he was practically attached to your hip already and you didn't have the heart to question why he'd decided to bestow his physical affections upon you of all people.

“You don't have to apologize for stuff like that—”

“I know,” he interrupts. “I just—” he shrugs, still avoiding your eyes in favor of staring at a scuff on his shoe, “—didn't know if you still wanted me to.”

The reality is that a single explosive confession of your frustration and a hug doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t fix anything, in all honesty. You’re still angry and upset and, quite frankly, hurt by what Lando had said and the way he’d treated you, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

“Garrett Ward,” Lando starts hesitantly, sparing you a fleeting glance at the mention of your fake boyfriend’s name, like he’s assessing your reaction, “blackmailed you into your relationship?”

You nod. A month ago, getting to talk about all of this was all you ever wanted and, in the heat of the moment, it had felt good to just blurt it all out and get it off your chest. The relief of someone else knowing— someone like Lando, who knows your ins and outs like he’s charted the map of your very being— isn’t erased now that you’ve had a moment to calm down, but it’s been overshadowed by a fluttery feeling of nervousness.

“He threatened to completely destroy my career,” you tell him again. “He said he’d make up a rumor about misconduct, and there’s enough people that would believe him. He has a very… devoted fanbase, as I’m sure you’re already aware.”

Lando’s drunken words return to you. Nobody in their right mind would soberly agree to be Garrett Ward’s girlfriend, and what does that say about you? Extenuating circumstances or not, if you were smarter like Lando said he thought you were, you probably would’ve been able to find a way out of it by now, or you would’ve been able to completely avoid getting tangled up in it entirely.

You think back to all the moments Jack had offered to unite the other City players who were supposedly more than willing to back up your claims that nothing unprofessional or inappropriate at all had happened while you were working at Etihad Campus and with the team.

At the time, the idea of actually standing up against him had scared you. You were too stubborn and proud to admit it, but Garrett Ward scared you— still scares you. His fans were still on their vitriolic rampage of hate, filling your comments and DMs with insults against your appearance, your career, and every other imaginable aspect of your being. You’d been forced to sort through death threats, wishes of harm, and instructions to kill yourself and the idea of it being in any way worse than it already was— the idea of exposing yourself to the judgement of so many others, others who would potentially side with a footballer they find mildly entertaining over a random girl whose only claim to fame is a few viral photographs for a motorsports team— had been overwhelming.

The night you sobbed in bed thinking about it all was the night you turned the comments off.

But, had you taken Jack up on his deal immediately, then maybe it would’ve been soon enough to also argue against anything else having “happened” in the time you’ve since spent alone with Garrett out and about on your scheduled excursions for the paparazzi.

Garrett Ward is a smart man, though he shows it so rarely in a capacity that’s actually beneficial to anyone or anything that doesn’t pertain to him. The threats he made on that night in early January about misconduct aren’t as fool-proof when you’d have a team of other players corroborating a completely different story to his. But there are other things he could say now that are harder to argue against without it all turning into a muddled he-said-she-said clusterfuck.

Being back around racing cars and their drivers has been a good distraction for a time, but you dread the day when he turns those new threats against you and asks for more than you’ve already agreed to give him for his scheme.

Lando winces, probably also remembering his words, or at the very least whatever recount Daniel gave him if he was too drunk to remember it all clearly.

“Can’t you dispute his claim?” He finally looks at you again. “Does he even have any evidence?”

You frown, “It’d be his word against mine, unless he doctored evidence to use against me. But it’s not as simple as just saying he’s lying. He’s an athlete, you know how much sway someone like Garrett has. Even if he can’t prove anything, the hit to my reputation would be enough to ensure I’m never able to find a photography gig again, let alone another in the sports industry.”

You imagine that no matter what you do now, your at Garrett’s whim and have no choice but to adhere to the schedule he wants to follow.

You tell Lando as much. “I just have to wait it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a PR thing,” you say with a shrug. It’s your turn to look away now, awkwardly tracing the cracks in the pavement beneath your shoes. “He’s only with me to prove he can hold down a steady relationship and fix his reputation. He’ll end it eventually.”

You’re still pretending to be enraptured with an odd spot on the ground, so you hear more than see Lando take a break, like he’s preparing to speak again—

“Session’s resuming in ten, Lando,” comes another voice instead.

Oscar has the decency to look a bit regretful at interrupting the two of you, probably because it’s the first time in weeks that you’ve both tolerated being so physically close and he’s tired of the angst and tension that permeates when you’re both confined to the same general location as one another. Either of you could’ve just as easily taken to standing as far away from each other as you could, and though it would’ve been awkward, it wouldn’t have been very hard to pass the time in total silence. Oscar’s probably just glad you both can at least still hold a civil conversation without wanting to tear each other apart, which makes you wonder whether the earlier shouting had actually managed to go unnoticed beneath the busy sounds of the garage.

Lando nods. He spares you one final glance, that you meet for a fleeting second, before he disappears through the door.

Oscar lingers. He’s watching you with those all-knowing eyes of his.

“What?” You ask.

He shrugs, but his stare is expectant.

“I told him,” you say in place of his continued silence. “About the whole Garrett situation.”

“And?”

You grind the toe of your shoe against the pavement, stalling. Oscar isn’t scheduled to drive until the afternoon session, which means he doesn’t have anywhere to be, but a part of you wonders if you could bore him enough with your own silence that it would make him wander off back to the garage in search of something to do.

Except this is Oscar you’re talking about it, and he could probably exist in total silence with someone for days if he really wanted to—probably wouldn’t even need to try.

You bite the bullet and lower yourself down to the ground, beckoning for him to do the same beside you with a wave of your hand.

“I’m realizing that I don’t actually know how to read him as well as I thought I did,” you admit when he joins you. “He was my best friend— is still my best friend, and I thought I knew everything about him, but now I feel like I never really knew him at all.”

Oscar hums, “I think you do know Lando, better than a lot of other people can say. You’re just realizing that he’s good at hiding things when he wants to. Just think about it, he’s never had a reason to hide anything from you, so of course it would be easy to read him when he’s always letting you. He’s practically an open book for you, Y/N.”

“So I fucked up our friendship by holding him accountable for his actions and now he’s never going to be open with me ever again.” You run a hand through your hair and let your fingers tangle in the wind-strewn strands, letting the sparks of pain keep you from spiralling at the thought of having ruined the most important relationship you’ve ever had.

Oscar snorts, “That’s not at all what I was going to say.”

“Yeah, well—” you elbow him teasingly in the ribs, “—you’re a freak of nature, so forgive me for not understanding how your freakish brain works either.”

“What I was going to say, is that it’s a setback at worst. You keep talking about it like having an argument isn’t completely normal behavior for friends. Me and Logan used to fight a lot, back in our Prema days especially. But you’d never be able to guess it by looking at us now. I mean, my parents keep a picture of him on our family fridge, so…” Oscar stifles a laugh when you lift an questioning eyebrow at him.

“My point is,” he continues, “just keep talking with him. Give it time, and things will get better again. But if you want my honest opinion, I think Lando’s just realized that he overstepped and did something to hurt you, and because he doesn’t want to do it again, he’s trying to make himself smaller, in a way, to minimize the chances. My guess is that he kept his distance as a way of trying not to impede.”

You lean your head back until it thunks against the wall and you’re staring up at the overhang above you and the slivers of blue sky peeking through the slats. “‘Impede,’” you repeat as you do so. “There’s nothing for him to even impede on.”

Oscar makes another sound. “Just because he knows the reality of the situation between you and Ward now doesn’t mean he didn’t spend nearly two months believing otherwise.”

Which— he makes a good point. It’s a really good point, actually, but you don’t like what it does to the butterflies in your stomach. They always used to appear back when you still humored the idea of a blossoming romance being somehow possible between yourself and Lando. Their reemergence isn’t as pleasant as you fantasized about it one day being, so you shove the feeling back down and bury it deep, and Oscar lets you both sit in companionable silence until he’s called back to duty by his race engineer.

The rest of the day goes easily enough.

Lando finishes his allotted time without anymore issues much to the relief of everyone in the garage. When he hops out of the car with a big grin stretched across his face, there’s a collective sigh of relief given by the engineers and mechanics alike.

You note that, despite the cheerful smile, there’s still the underlying exhaustion that seems to be dragging him down. The dark circles are hidden only slightly better when his eyes are squinted with the force of his grin, and the sickly palor of his skin has only been covered temporarily by the red flush of his cheeks brought on by the combined heat of the car and Bahrain’s midday sun. Despite the energy he exudes, bouncing around as he debriefs with his race engineer, his shoulders are sagging beneath the weight of an invisible force that worries you.

You’d be a liar if you said you weren’t still frustrated. Lando knows the gist of the situation. There’s a lot of finer points that he’d need to be filled in on if you wanted to talk about it with him in the same way that you discuss it with Jack, but he at least knows the story. Even still, he hasn’t apologized for his part in any of it— for the pain and distress he caused you when ignoring your calls and texts, for the hurt and shame he made you feel when he tore you apart in his drunken rant.

There is so much you still want to say to him, so many mean things you want to bring up from your worst days hiding in the bathroom at work or your loneliest nights curled up in your flat.

You imagine you’ll have your chance to get it all out there eventually, but as vindicating as it would be to scream and rage and throw the tantrum you believe you are justified to have, you imagine it would feel so much nicer to go back to how things were.

There will be more confrontations and you know that it will have get worse again before it gets better, but in the meantime you can take the win for what it is and celebrate that it’s still something.

And right now, Lando needs you as a friend as much as you need him.

It’s easier said than done, however.

You aren’t avoiding him, exactly, but he’s busy. In the past, you’d make yourself comfortable in whatever space he’s occupying and wait for him to get done, but you’re currently trying to maintain a bit of distance for both of your sake. There isn’t any lingering spite or desire to be away from him— there’s never been a desire to be away from him, if you’re being honest with yourself— but you’ve been able to come to terms with the fact that you really just want to hug him again and keep hugging him, and that might become a problem if you’re not careful. You can’t afford to just rush back into things.

Because the thing this, you might be stubborn and set in your ways, but you know that Lando is such a key part of your life and has been for so long— like a drug that you can’t live without, or rather don’t want to live without— that if given the opportunity to do so, you might unknowingly let everything go and dive head first into your revived friendship too fast just for the small chance of experiencing that normalcy again.

So you keep your distance. You stick on one side of the garage and Lando, after showering and changing out of his fireproofs, is kept on the other with debriefs and technical talk. He glances over a few times and meets your eyes, offers tentatives smiles that seem so much more tame and reluctant than his usual upbeat self, and hovers at the imaginary line separating your side from his, but before he’s ever able to cross over there’s someone else pulling him away to discuss one thing or another.

It’s as you’re making your way to the shuttle from the circuit to the hotel that you finally get your opportunity. Lando’s voice calls your name and stops you in your tracks.

Though Oscar had driven for the remainder of the day, and there wasn’t much else to worry about on or off the track, he looks even more exhausted in the darkness of the night, with the shadows cast by the streetlamps darkening the bags beneath his eyes and further accentuating his paleness.

He catches up to you quickly, a hesitant smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Um,” he nervously stutters out, “I know there’s still a lot that we need to talk about and things aren’t completely fine between us yet— and that’s fine,” he hurries to add on, “you deserve to be mad at me. I just—” he cuts himself off and casts his gaze downward to watch his fluttering fingers pick at an already bloodied hangnail. “I’m sorry. You deserve a better apology and I’ll give you one when we’re not stood in a dark carpark, but for now I’m sorry for everything. Most importantly, I’m sorry for making you feel like I didn’t value you as… as a friend.”

He falls quiet, still staring down at the mess he’s made of his cuticle. You gawk at him for a moment in surprise.

“Um,” he starts again when you don’t say anything, shifting restlessly on his feet like he’s contemplating whether to stand his ground or dash off. He glances up at you shyly, and you never thought you’d ever really describe Lando with the word shy, but there’s no other way to refer to the soft look he spares you before quickly diverting his eyes back to his hangnail. “I was wondering, would you wanna come crash at my hotel room and watch stupid TV with me? I can order us cheap wine off the room service menu, or something.”

You recognize the olive branch for what it is.

Lando’s never been the greatest with his words, he’s always excelled at replacing what can be said with what can be done instead, and this is his way of asking to make it up to you— of asking to be let in to at least prove to you that he’s serious.

You take in his downtrodden appearance however, and realize that maybe it’s also his way of asking you not to leave him alone anymore. You remind yourself of your earlier observation: Lando needs a friend as much as you do.

You nudge him with your shoulder after a moment, causing him to lift his gaze once more and meet your eyes again.

“I’d love to,” you answer, offering him a gentle smile back.

━━ tags: @maih23 @urfavnoirette @leclercsluv @f1luvur @formulaal @a-disturbing-self-reflection @starlightpierre @chezmardybum @marshmummy @405rry @sideboobrry11 @d3kstar @mcmuppet @happylittlereader @casperlikej @5starl1ght @bellezaycafe @whentheautumnleavesfall @mess-is-my-aesthetic @ssprayberrythings @landosgirlxoxo @lifelessfan @81ja @wcnorris @a-disturbing-self-reflection (CLOSED).

━━ a/n: this story has reached a frightening word count that i never imagined it reaching (28k), if i'm being honest, but the more the merrier right? my sincerest apologies for taking so long to get this up, though. i've been a bit ill as of late, which has just completely zapped my energy to do anything that isn't rot in bed all day. i'm feeling better, hence finally getting around to finishing the last home stretch of this part, but i feel bad for how long it took me and i'm hoping the next part won't take me as long as this one did.

#THE OLIVE BRANCH #ur joking #sick and twisted #i love them so much your honor #i think about this fic pretty much daily #i actually have no words bc i loved it sm

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